today i went shopping, with two of my five. Matilda is happy sit in the trolley or frolley as she calls it but Jemimah is no fan of the baby seats so i usually carry her in a harness, which at the age of nearly 9 months is not much fun for me. So once i have navigated the huge supermarket aisles with a trolley whose wheels are somewhat possessed….im just about ready to fall into a heap. 

On the way out of this supermarket was a lady trying to sell a subscription to a magazine. I obviously hit her demographic 'cos she pounced on me like a cat on a mouse…but you know what puzzles me..people who start with the words..

'i can see you have your hands full but…'

Now really ideally you want someone to follow that statement with…

'let me get you a cuppa…'

'let me help you out to your car..'

'allow me to carry some shopping or get you a cupcake….'

but no, instead invariably it is followed with…

'this will just take a minute…'

which, of course, is an out and out lie…either that or 60 seconds is a lot longer than i thought it was…..

and i stood politely while she waved her laminated card of coupon benefits and incentives to get me to sign up. Matilda started whining and Jemimah started wriggling and making noise and she clucked and cooed and said 'ahh..she looks tired'…don't you hate that comment!

'No lady..im the one that has just carried this 8kilo baby round a supermarket while pushing a toddler in a psychopathic trolley…its ME who is tired..'

Next time im hoping that im brave enough to look at my watch when they say 'it will just take a minute' and say 'right you have 60 seconds and then im walking'

I did manage to get away without committing to anything, it might have been because in the end the kids wanted lunch or it might have been that salesperson had the scariest finger nails and lip gloss i think i have ever seen outside of a pantomine dame's dressing room! =)

anyway waddayagonnado..?

Signing off tonight with this..i always have a willing queue of models in my house..sometimes they even fight over it….

teamjames

beautiful huh? Well the trick is remembering to feel blessed when those gentle voices are shall we say not quite so gentle right?

After a long hot day, church, lunch out, a long walk home and a ice-lolly in the garden, this was the best we could do. But life with five kids is messy and chaotic and i think it fairly clearly demonstrates that here.  =)

Happy Father's day to these kid's awesome dad and to my own wonderful dad as well. 

teamjames

so, yeah..it happened i turned 40. All that 'trying to stop it' didn't work and it happened, like the tide coming in…its downright inevitable. Happy to report, however, nothing changed…much..nothing fell off, nothing drooped (anymore than normal), nothing ached ..(er…again anymore than normal) and I haven't, as yet, started fantasising about riding off into the sunset on a big harley….

actually thats more of a blokes mid life crisis thing isnt it?

so whats the female equivalent?

Probably best not to know…and don't suggest toy boys people. 'cos i already have me one of them *heh heh* 

Speaking of the hubster, he managed to somehow correlate a book of memories from my friends and family and presented it to me on my birthday. Hand on heart, i didn't look through it much on the day, didn't want mascara running down my face before the party got going and since then life has been frantic and its one of those things that im saving for when i have a bit of 'me time'

*insert hysterical laughing* yeeeah…right..

Anyway to those of you who did contribute I am so incredibly touched and honoured that you would spend time to write down and send me your thoughts…thank you thank you 

One not so good thing about my actual birthday was the downright torrential weather ALL day. One of those days when the weather forecast was BANG on and it started raining when they said it would and stopped when they said it would about 7 hours later just as the last couple of friends were leaving….i think there were people in the garden planning construction of an Ark!…and the kids turned the garden into a mini glastonbury…using all the outdoor play stuff even in the throwing it down rain, even using water pistols. Northern kids are just plain tough. 

Sadly I have hardly any pictures from the day…i know..how lousy is that for someone who takes photographs but i guess if I'm not behind the camera then it, sadly, won't get up and take some pictures for me. But there were a few. 

opening cards first thing. Which i have to say was incredibly early.

I so fell in love with this cake when i saw it. We asked Lizzie Harris to do this cake for me. You can find her incredible cakes here. So, so incredibly talented. We all adored it. The kids loved checking out their 'icing' counterpart. Just.so.clever. 

Another birthday surprise was my aunt, my mum's sister, arriving by train in Liverpool from Brighton and surprising us…which was such a lovely treat..she is a crazy lady =)..just about blew my mum away i think!

So our party ended late afternoon, you know it was a school night n'all. In fact, these days parties don't end in the wee small hours, its sensible times, designated driver, kids need to nap type parties…So for us,  when it all died down, when we had waved folk home with our thanks, appreciation and hugs, tidied up, mopped the floor, put tired and sugar filled children in bed, turned off the wii and the 80's music,  retrieved a few hundred sausage and lolly sticks from under the sofa,  recycled the empties and packed up the left overs……

I sat with a cup of tea and a piece of birthday cake and wondered what the next decade of my life will hold….

bring it …..

=)

teamjames

feels like i havent done one of those in ages….

1. Not that im focused on it or anything but its only 4 days till i fall into the next decade of life. Im still undecided about how i feel about it really…

2. Wondering who is going to buy what from my list ……

just kidding….

a bit 😉

3. Isaac is worried about what car he will buy when he is 18, how he is going to get the money and what sort of job will pay enough to get a car…didn't have the heart to tell him that there is no way he will ever be able to insure his own car at 18 let alone afford one. His short list so far consisted of Land Rover, Volvo, Mercedes…a mini cooper went past us and he said 'oh not one of them they are too small..' thats the response of a kid from a huh-ooge family right?

4. We went to a christening on the Wirral on sunday. Such a pretty little girl and baby friend for our J bird. 

5. Bouncy castle for the party on Sunday or not.? just can't decide, if it didnt mean sacrificing so much of the actual garden then it would be an easy choice..but then i suppose it could be raining?

6. I went to the dentist last week, check up…was in the surgery for less than about five minutes and when i came out the three older kids who i had left in the waiting room had helped themselves to three cups of hot chocolate from the complementary drinks machine….i ushered them out before the dentist saw…but really should there be hot chocolate available in a dentist and also…who slams back a cup of coffee just before seeing the dentist…? coffee breath is not nice at the best of times but when you are up that close its got to be bad. 

7. My iphone had what i think was a bit of a 'petit mal' the other day, it just went blank and wouldnt come on again, eventually i managed to get it on but im wondering if it is on its swan song so to speak…and i accept that i may be wishing that 'cos id quite like the iphone 4…

8. Today i walked a grand total of 8 kids home from school, no-one got lost, run over or disappeared and it was only when i crossed a particularly busy road and i made them all stand in a row that i thought 'wow this is a lot of kids' and also 'im not surprised so many people are staring at me?' hey…Maria Von trapp?….

you got nothin' on me 🙂

9. check out this blog post… here..not sure im an introvert but i love some of her ideas. Especially the single line journalling, think im going to give that one a go. 

10. and leaving you with one of the songs that oh so much takes me back its not true…hahahahahahaha…yeah ;p

teamjames

we have had a great weather week. School is out and the sun appeared for most of the week. Which as we were 'staycationing' this half term was brilliant. Isaac got to play football at a local Uni campus for two days of the week. Ben was labouring away fixing the deck and sorting things a bit for next weekend and so us girls got to hang out a bit. I did a a lovely shoot on Thursday, you can see that here if you fancy a peek… and when i got back we played around a bit with the lights in the front room. 

the full compliment of James ladies jnr. Yes there had been face painting!

one suspicious looking baby..she has since finally worked out the leg/knee co-ordination for proper crawling..although she looks a little like one of those wind up crawling dolls. 🙂

and a little cheesy but the girls were playing with the 'alphablocks' so we gave them to J. Mind you, it took Ben passing by and telling me that i had spelt her name wrong……

I think its good though that i was actually calling the right child by the right name. Sometimes there are entire days when that doesnt happen at all!

and no..she wouldn't stop eating those blocks!

teamjames